Fish, and other stories
by Senri
Summary: Three: Kairi finds Ienzo. Zexion finds Namine. Four: three things Zexion would rather put away. Five: the Destiny Trio back on the Island again. One third chafing at the bit.
1. fish: sora

Dawn fills the sky with yellow light. It looks false, pale, wafer-thin, as easily punched through as a paper nautilus shell or the petal of an island rose. The sea is pale green and as smooth as a piece of bread. Sora wakes, and looks out, and already the rhythm of the waves seems different. Adventure is approaching him like the rush of the horizon and he feels it on his skin: the tingle of salt spray. Tomorrow, they set sail.

Kairi is already down at the beach. She is laying out supplies: wicked hooks for fishing from the raft, lead weights, cord a little thinner than Sora's pinkie finger. Tangerines which glow like streetlights in the mellow dawn. Sora swipes one and peels it all in one long strip: Kairi catches him at it, and swats him gently on back of the head. "Oaf," she says. "We'll run out on the voyage, and you'll get scurvy, and then see if I care. It'll be your own fault!" She pulls back her lips in the young-girl grin. Innocent, mean, beautiful. Sora ducks forward and laughs. What a good kid, is what all the adults think when they look at him: Sora is a good kid. Harmless. A little goofy. Nice, sweet, a bit of a dreamer, sort of a failure at schoolwork - he's got too much energy. A kid with a future playing small-time blitzball, or signing on with a fisherman and then dying young in a storm. Because it's too sad to think of a vital kid like Sora getting old and lonely because he never applied himself to learning long division or the history of anything.

"What d'you want me to do, Kairi?" He asks. Sora has eyes of rich blue, the color of deep water, or the shade way out in the distance where the sky and the ocean kiss up cozy - where water and heaven blend, some say, where if you could swim out far enough and wish hard enough you'd get right out of the water and stroke away into infinity.

"Get more food," she says promptly. "Mom wouldn't give me enough for a long sea voyage, she doesn't think we're really going to do it - maybe some coconuts for drink, and catch some fish. Just for starters."

"Aww," Sora replies, acknowledging and sort of complaining all at once. "Why'm I doing all this? Isn't Riku around?" And where is the lazy dog, anyway, the errant best friend with eyes the turquoise of shallow ocean? It's early and it's too awful to think that only he and Kairi might be suffering this way.

"_Riku_ promised to bring back a compass, and some raincoats, and some maps," Kairi says, with a little flounce. "Go get the fish already, Sora."

"What are you gonna do?" he asks, only she's already off, messing about incomprehensibly with the canvas sail that thrashes white as a gull's wing. Sora scratches at his grungy hair and sets off towards the lagoon where the fish like to come in and bask. He'll catch something there.

This is Sora's special and unique talent, and it's what people remark on about him at school board meetings and before blitzball games: Sora, the kid who catches fish with his hands. He has a quick grip and a good eye, both of which one needs to make a grab for a slippery tuna bare-handed and actually manage to hold it. He likes catching fish, he likes to fish: likes the weight of the sleek body extending his arm, likes the way the mass of it throws him off, just a little. Likes curling his fingers down in the mouth and catching through the gills. He admires the rainbow-flicker of scales in their death throes and the bleached gold of their eyes. Fish, fish, fish.

The lagoon is wonderful, magical, shallow and calm; Sora learned to swim there, seabirds passing through on their long journeys pause to catch a bite. He takes off his shoes and shuffles out chest-deep in the warm water, it is comforting as a hot bath, it receives him like a caress. Sora's swimming is his other notable talent. He has a good, smooth breaststroke, and he hardly leaves a ripple behind him as he strikes out towards where he knows the fish live.

Head submerged, he can hear the deep boom-boom of the waves on the shore, or his heart in his ears; Sora's never been sure which. Salt bites at his eyes for a moment before the pain just sort of gives up and floats away. Barred stripes of sun shimmy along the sandy bottom. Sora kicks forward, lifts his head to gasp, plunges face down again, closes his eyes.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom. The waves on the shore. He can hear it, even here, protected by the enclosing sand bars. It sounds the same as ever. Only with his eyes shut, in the dark, it sounds a little different. Boom-boom - is that a heartbeat, or someone knocking, impatiently, at the door? Someone outside, trying to get in? _Outside_ _where?_ he wonders abruptly, or doesn't, because at the moment the currents around him change and Sora opens his eyes and lashes out a hand. _Fish_.

He cut himself up once, wicked bad, snatching blindly like that. It was because he reached for a dogfish, and the moment he caught it around its blunt head the small shark lashed its supple body into a tight curve, lifted the two razor-sharp spines on its back and mashed them into Sora's forearm. He still has the scars, white, raised pads of tissue that don't tan no matter how much sun he gets on them. He's hated sharks since, even though he thinks they're beautiful: the reflecting cat-eyes, the rough skin. The scars are a constant reminder of why.

This time, however, he's lucky; no shark this, but some fine other fish - Sora's never bothered learning the names. He only wants to admire them, then gut them. This one thrashes in his hand, transformed from a creature of grace into a frantic thing fighting for its life. A losing battle: Sora gets a hand around it, near where the tail narrows, and he hooks the fingers of his other hand into its curved, frowning mouth. The water is deep enough that his toes just brush the bottom and he stands, lifts the fish, bites it hard between his eyes. And that kills it as good as hitting it on the head.

He turns around, he'll take this to Kairi; one catch at a time is enough. The pummeling ocean holds him close. The waves on the shore still sound, alarmingly, like something foreign. _Someone is trying to get in_, Sora thinks, and then he is staggering from the water dripping brine everywhere and the thought flies away again.

It is cold, in the island shadows; or it feels that way to Sora. But then, he is also dripping wet. The fish is shining like a pearl. He dangles it from his left hand, in his accustomed manner. Plunging from sun to shade, sun to shade, becomes wild and disorienting; Sora blinks and thinks that perhaps this is what fish feel like when they are pulled from the water and then go back in. His hair is in his eyes. Kairi and Riku are together on the beach; Sora breaks into a run to join them.

"Oh, good," Kairi says, eyeing the fish. She wields a lethal-looking pair of scissors. "You got a nice one."

"Good catch, Sora," Riku says. One corner of his full mouth turns up a little. "That will feed us for days, won't it?"

Riku is full of little challenges like this. Sora has learned to let them run off his back like so much summer rain, because they are like summer rain: warm and harmless. "It'd hold us for longer," he grins, "if we didn't have to feed your piggy face, Rik."

Kairi takes the fish from him, grimacing at the slime. She wades into the water a little, slips one scissors-blade into the fish's anus, and slits it neatly up the belly. She steps on its head to hold it close in, jabs the scissors point-down into the sand, and starts tearing out the entrails. These she throws into the sea: which they are not actually really supposed to do, because sometimes the guts wash back up and gulls become a nuisance fighting for them, but Kairi, Riku and Sora are masters of not exactly doing what they're supposed to do. So neither of the boys say anything.

Sora shakes his head, spraying brine everywhere. He is beginning to get the crusted, dirty feeling of dried salt on his body, but that is all right; he has more fish to catch, after all. But for now he only watches as Kairi skillfully guts his catch. The entrails float away in the water, and disappear into the deep; and Sora has the shivery feeling in the back of his mind that no, these will not wash up on the island's shores ever again; something is out there, on the other side of reality, trying to get in. It is hungry, and dark, and fish guts will only placate it for a short while; but for now he thinks, _keep these shores safe_. It is his true heart's desire, his one and only wish. He clenches his fists and glares at the horizon.

Then Riku punches his shoulder and says, "What's eating you?" and the thoughts are gone again.

………….

_August 4, 2005._

_Inspired by watching my friend play the beginning of the game and wondering just how Sora was catching the fish, anyway._


	2. fray: axel&saix

He comes across Axel in Traverse Town, where true to name, people are always on the move. Dusk falls smoky and silky over the complacent streets, the roofs that bisect sky; alleys form capillaries off the arterial, more frequented thoroughfares, and here is where Saix finds his (former) friend.

Axel stands in the shade, looking up at a primrose-lit window, and when Saix follows his gaze he can see what's captured the other Nobody's attention. A woman is undressing there, existing as a silhouette. Careless of her figure swallowing up the light, moving like this and like that across the room, letting down her hair, trailing a graceful arm. Readying herself for sleep, and Saix only has to glance to see that this hint of her femininity, this curve of breast, that turn of hips, stirs (as per usual) very little in him. He looks to Axel, instead.

His old friend is not paying attention to where he is. His old friend is not paying attention to much of anything, except for that woman moving in the window, and if this was anyone besides Saix he might be in real trouble. Could still be in trouble, and Saix moves forward, the better to see the molten jade of Axel's eyes, the way the man opens his mouth a little, pulling air over his tongue, like a fox taking scent.

"It's an experiment," Axel drawls, lazy, not caring that he's been seen - not that he can care. Even now, he barely seems to notice Saix.

"For what?"

"My question is," and finally Axel looks at him, "is desire emotion... or not?"

Saix frowns, and Axel laughs, lifts a hand a sweeps it carelessly through the air. "Right now I'm leaning towards saying not. She isn't doing much for me." The avaricious gleam of his eyes says otherwise, and Saix who would have felt something for this before feels nothing now, of course, of course - has trouble even remembering what he should feel, how he would have reacted. If Axel keeps this up they will both get in trouble.

"We have a job to do," Saix reminds him, low-voiced. This must be the feeling of frustration, or madness - the persistent, futile attempts to reel in something that's taken the slack in the line and run with it.

"A job for the boss," Axel smirks. "When do we get time for my questions?"

Saix wonders what he'll do, if Axel someday doesn't follow him.


	3. garden party: kairi&ienzo&zexion&namine

She finds him in the gardens, reading. Kairi is very small, and all the plants climb up over her head, so even the well-kept palace grounds rustle with a little mystery. She can duck and disappear into mulch and secret shadow and dampness, burying dirt under her nails and playing pretend.

Ienzo is not much bigger than she is, but he's studied much longer, and for being a bit of a prim boy he knows a lot about the plants and the place, and he does fit there, loamy blue-shadowed eyes and that dusky hair. He never speaks, Kairi just talks to him. A palace servant tells her his name.

He does teach her things. He shows her how you can pull off the trumpet-petal of a columbine to drink the nectar, like a small bird, just a spot of sweetness on their larger tongues.

Ω

"You can drink flower honey," she tells her boys, much later, when she's older. She doesn't remember how she first learned but she remembers the learning, drinking like a fairy from a columbine-flower.

Destiny Island doesn't do it right. Sora and Riku find her magnificent flowers, sundew in sprays and tropically bright trumpets, but they're not what she remembers. The three of them are allowed to wander freely together while they search. The Islands are wild, but tame. Uncoiffed, but not dangerous.

Kairi sometimes thinks about finding strangers there, and she's always a little disappointed that they never turn a corner and come across someone small and silent, browsing a book under the dappled shade.

"Even if you can't drink from flowers, we can all share this," Sora grins, sunny, holding up a fruit shaped like a star. "It's a Paopu! A promise fruit."

She eats one later, all for herself. It's sticky and messy, joyfully sweet on her tongue.

Ω

And Zexion, he finds the girl on a trip to Wonderland, made idly, simply to catch up on things. He's a master of illusion, suited to traverse a place where illusions become reality; he can even be appropriately nonsensical, and a rhymester, when he's called upon to be.

The March Hare has rolling reddened eyes, the same as the Hatter, and whenever Zexion stops here for tea he presses the steaming cup against fastidiously closed lips.

"We have a new g-g-guest, today, Illusionist, sir," the Hare stutters to him, and Zexion nods and inclines his head to the pallid girl they present him with, slick blond hair and deep blank blue eyes, that glance shyly towards him and then down. He'd press a kiss to her be-gloved hand if he didn't half think it would shrivel her up like a dried flower, and he watches her watch him, through cobwebby lashes.

"Good day," she says, and he says, "Good day to you." There is something quite familiar about the way she carries herself, although it's turned about, spelled wrong. He didn't become so _very_ very different from Ienzo, he thinks he recalls.

"What shall you do with her?" he asks their hosts.

"She ought to go to school," says the Hatter firmly.

"She ought to have a f-f-family," says the Hare, decisive.

"She's a bit like you, isn't she?" The both of them between them are sometimes more perceptive than he likes, not to mention the Doormouse, gratefully asleep. It's a lucky kind of perception, this time, because she's given over to him to take with no trouble at all.

He picks her a daisy for her to occupy herself with, and holds her hand so she doesn't trail off too much, and watches her turn the limp, plain little flower curiously over in her free hand.

It's not quite the right thing, is it? But the future does twist from what the past once was. And it matches her well enough, that white and yellow pallor, the way it droops as he walks her into the dusk.


	4. spindrift: zexion

1. Breakfast, those memories, waking up from a long night and coming into the morning. Ienzo had no appetite but he was provided with heavy food. Fluffy scrambled eggs, toast and jam, orange juice and milk over granola, suitable for a young boy expected to grow.

He still wasn't speaking, through those breakfasts. Ienzo by then had perfected the art of isolating himself with one agile twist of his mind. He could be alone in a crowd of people, on the edge of all of them, watching.

Just, what he remembers: a bed too big for him, where he knocked around like a dried pea in a tin. Stretching his feet out under the smooth sheets, the comforter and fabric sliding against his skin, undemanding.

(Zexion rarely sleeps, although he maintains a penchant for food. There's nothing quite like that feeling of safe harbor to put someone else at ease, which he's called upon to do, now and again. He remembers someone comforting him, and he improves on that.

No one listens like him. He really _understands_. He's been through it all, after all).

2. Shooting marbles, with the other children, between being chased by them. Even kept him close, tied to the apron strings so to speak, for the most part, but Ienzo was already becoming slippery, with an exploratory bent. An observer, and he was hungry to observe, but not even a level stare could always protect him from the bigger children, and sometimes he just had to cut and run.

But sometimes, he'd smirch his pressed pants with courtyard dust, crouching down on the cobblestones with other older boys and a few girls jostling at his elbows, fighting for marbles.

He picked up a lost one for his first, and went on winning more with that. It was all angles, calculation, with just a bare element of gamble, and social status as well as the marble to lose. He hated that moment of having to let fly, but Ienzo clambered to the top of the heap, the diminutive marble king.

He could win when it came to thinking, at least. He was the master of the calculated gamble.

(Zexion later would remember that, and his favorite, the clear cat's eye with a twist of green running through the glass - people not anything more or less than that, some more appealing than others, to be collected, calculated, used, and put away for later.)

3. Sitting with Even, eating sea salt ice cream, both of them leaning forward with their elbows on their knees and nearly being equal, like that. Even then Ienzo hungered for independence and control and he liked that, those moments, when Even would shuffle his ubiquitous stacks of papers aside and they'd go sit on the lab stairs in the tawny afternoon sun, both of them licking trickling ice cream off the sides of their hands.

Until he can say everything he wants to say perfectly, Ienzo would rather not say anything at all.

His eyes are nothing more than camera lenses. His brain is complicated biological apparatus to turn a reel of film, committing all of this to the deepest memory he can. This man who's in charge of him, these boundaries that delineate his world.

(Zexion can be loquacious, an orator when it's required of him. A schemer must scheme smoothly. A manipulator must wind people round his fingers.

He'd rather take than give, and what he takes most people throw away, unthinking, more fool they. They were all fools. He remembers). 


	5. winterwards: destiny trio

Summertime burns in all their bones those island days. It's all light and heat, even down by the water where the breeze blows warm, off in the distance the sea and the sky blending together, unbarred by land.

There's not the faintest trace of anything out there. No signs of land, at best the occasional cloud, drifting like globby jellyfish through that endless sky. The sea shushes the land, the trees shush the breezes. Sora wades with Riku and Kairi in the shallowest parts before he strikes out, all of them slinging warm water at each other, darkening in the sun. Salt water dries itchy on the skin.

"Do you still think about what's out there?" he asks them, later, when the sun is high enough that they've all given up and retreated to the shade. It hurts to look at the sand. The sea barely seems alive; nothing seems alive, under that sun. Together they float in a morass of heat.

They thought about taking a raft out there together, once. Sora thinks about that, them out there in something like this, on the flat water.

"We know, don't we?" Riku rests his elbows on his knees and glances over. His eyes are like the only green things in the world. Kairi pulls at the straps of her tank top and sighs. She's darkened in the sun and pale lines cross her shoulders.

Home, summer home. It's too hot to breathe, it's too hot to do anything. Somewhere out there there's a cold deep dark where creatures still move, but all they have right now is this burning river of sun and time. They all know other worlds maybe better than they know their own.

"We know some of it." Sora stares out at the skyline, that denial that blue would ever be a cool color.

"Knowledge begins with the self," Kairi says.

He still looks up, thinking of that raft, that postage stamp of rickety wood and sail, skimming just barely over the depthless waters.


End file.
